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www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 8 - Issue 2 | February 2018
InStudio
Systems Integration - Part I
Suhail Ahmed,
Chief Technology Officer,
TSL Systems Dubai:
"Sports is certainly a growth area,
and I would be looking at Facebook's
current strategic moves all over
the globe as it continues to bring in
high profile executives to dominate
the sports segment. This could be a
potential game changer and, if we see
other key players follow suit, we may
be delivering to RFP requirements
from the likes of Facebook to build
studios and large transcode farms.
"On the traditional side of things,
we will have several customers in the
MENA region looking at moving ahead
with their facility upgrades. Emerging
markets like Pakistan will be worth
watching out for too. The existing
limitation of analogue cable may get
resolved as most cable operators
migrate to digital, which will allow
for new channel licenses to be issued.
With the launch of Paksat 1R, most
customers are keen to migrate to HD,
but this will be a matter of timing;
the sooner HD is provided by the
cable operators, the sooner channels
will invest in upgrading to HD and
improving their content.
"The current climate seems to be
most favourable for upgrades; these
could be categorised into two types:
facility wide upgrades and staged
upgrades of selected elements (for
example
-
studio,
file-based
systems,
transmission could be
kept for last). Training is
another area of potential
growth.
Educating
customers on the impact
of IP on workflows, what
to expect and how to
prepare will be the key
prior to any large scale
IP adaptation.
"We're very proud of
our work on MBC's new
Dubai Studio City facility,
on which we worked
cont'd...
closely with MBC's own engineering
team. The challenges of the project
were manifold: First, MBC had set an
extremely aggressive timeline for the
project in line with its planned roll
out of a new look for MBC1. Second,
the new production infrastructure and
facilities had to be built in parallel to
the considerable construction work
that was needed to adapt the building
to suit MBC's requirements. Third, the
MBC production team would have to
transition from being spread over five
floors in the same building to being
split across two locations. Added
to this, ad hoc requests from the
production team had to be worked into
the project as they cropped up.
"In order to protect the broadcast
equipment from the ongoing building
work and meet the project targets,
we built the entire system offsite and
then rebuilt it on location once the
construction work was completed. On
the connectivity side, Avid Interplay
Delivery was chosen to connect the
two MBC locations in Dubai - the first
such deployment in the region - and
we also implemented
the
Dante
audio
networking protocol,
providing
the
production team with
a variety of audio and
integrated control of
the audio network.
"The MBC Studio City
site went live on time
and within budget,
with no disruption to
MBC's live channels."
MBC's Dubai
Studio City facility
KLCS TV Selects Aveco Platform
A
veco, the television industry's
largest independent automation
provider, has announced that its awardwinning master control automation
platform with integrated media asset
management (MAM) has been selected
by one of America's premiere stations,
KLCS in Los Angeles.
With a decades-long history of
technology leadership, KLCS continues
to lead the industry in the first
deployment of BXF 5.0 with Aveco and
Myers ProTrack.
The KLCS system also includes the first
Aveco Social Media Gateway deployed
in the US.
"KLCS initiated a 100% file-based
workflow nearly 15 years ago," said
Alan Popkin, Director of Engineering
& Technical Operations for KLCS. "We
have now embarked on a total rebuild
of the station to leverage the new
efficiencies available with the latest
technologies available.
"After a thorough review of
automation systems, including on-site
demonstrations of all main systems,
the staff uniformly preferred the Aveco
system for a number of reasons," said
Alan Popkin, Director of Engineering & Technical Operations, KLCS
Popkin. "It enabled us to customise the
automation to our existing workflow
as opposed to having to change the
workflow to match the automation
requirements. It is versatile enough to
accommodate any changes we'll need
to make in the future, as the media
business is constantly evolving."
The ability to customise the interfaces
(GUIs) was also a key factor in
selecting Aveco. Certain functions,
such as setting AFD flags directly in
the file - as opposed to sidecar files or
database lookup - is important to the
workflow at KLCS as they get a variety
of formats from various programme
providers.
"Some of the advanced features, such
as direct BXF 5.0 interface to the
Myers ProTrack traffic system and the
ability to use RSS to customise our
outreach to our members based on
schedule, provide both efficiencies and
new opportunities to interact with our
audience," continued Popkin. "From
an engineering perspective, the wide
range of devices Aveco will control and
the ease of integrating them made the
choice an obvious one to us."
"Aveco is honoured to work with
KLCS and Alan Popkin, whose drive
for technology innovation has been
admired for decades," said Jim
O'Brien, President of Aveco. "Aveco
has the industry's most advanced
master control and news production
automation system, built from 25 years
of constant dedication to innovation.
It's great to see our advanced software
features recognised. We're dedicated
to helping move the industry forward
and we appreciate the opportunity to
help KLCS in serving its community."